


Found

by jayjaybee



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 23:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13962453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayjaybee/pseuds/jayjaybee
Summary: Set after 7.8.'They are two people who’ve found each other. Who need each other. Who love each other. That’s all there is to it. What else is there to know?’





	Found

Evening is well advanced when Valerie returns to Nonnatus House. With the sudden influx of new mothers from the Walkworth Street practice, and with Phyllis now confined to bed after her temporary remission from lumbago turned out to be much too brief, the team at Nonnatus are stretched very thin; Valerie’s lengthy postnatal round has taken her through what feels like half the district. And so, she is bonetired as she wheels her bike into the shed and heads into the house. 

The sounds of Compline echo through the halls, and at the kitchen table (in what Valerie has come to think of as her accustomed spot) Lucille is sat, engrossed in a medical journal and yet poised to spring into action if the telephone should ring and the presence of a midwife be demanded anywhere in Poplar. 

Given everything that has happened in recent weeks, coming home to this is, Valerie thinks, a real comfort. 

Lucille smiles a welcome as Valerie enters. 

Valerie returns the greeting. ‘What is it today?’ she asks, wearily unbuttoning her cloak and setting it on the back of a chair. 

Lucille angles the medical journal towards her, and Valerie rests her hand on Lucille’s shoulder as she leans in for a closer look. Today it’s something about pancreatic disorders. Yesterday, advances in the treatment of fractures. The day before, anomalous blood cells. 

‘Well, don’t you have eclectic tastes.’

‘I have an enquiring mind. Are you done for the day?’ 

‘More than done.’ Valerie pulls out the chair and all but collapses on it. 

While she does so Lucille stands, stretches muscles that have become stiff from sitting so long, and then moves to fill the kettle and put it on the hob. 

‘So, go and get changed while I make a pot of tea,’ she says. 

Were anyone else to boss her around like this, Valerie would object, but when Lucille does it she doesn’t mind in the slightest. She doesn’t have to look too deeply within herself to know that she’d do pretty much anything Lucille asked of her, or to know why that is the case. Grumbling fondly, she heaves herself back up out of the chair, and gathers up her cloak.

She’s almost out of the room when Lucille asks, ‘Valerie - how’s Mrs Mawson? You saw her this afternoon, didn’t you?’

Valerie stops and turns. ‘Mother and baby are doing very well.’

‘And,’ Lucille seems to almost hesitate, ‘ – Stanley and Donald?’ 

Valerie sighs, and weary again, leans against the door frame for support. ‘I think it’s taking everyone a bit of getting used to.’

Lucille tenses almost imperceptibly. 

It’s such a small movement, but, small though it is, it provides an opening for which Valerie’s being looking for a while now. 

‘You know?’ she says, quietly. It is her turn to be tentative now. 

Lucille looks at her with a careful exasperation. ‘What do you take me for? I know that they are two people who’ve found each other. Who need each other. Who love each other. That’s all there is to it. What else is there to know?’

Not for the first time, Valerie’s heart pulls towards this fierce, beautiful girl who should never be underestimated. ‘What else indeed.’

‘So is that a problem for Mrs Mawson?’ 

‘No, not that. But moving Donald into the house, and working out how to live with his illness – it’s testing them all.’ 

Lucille nods. ‘We must do what we can to help.’

‘Of course we will,’ Valerie replies, and as Lucille holds her gaze for a second or two longer, she feels that pull in her heart again. 

Lucille breaks the moment. ‘Now go on – go and get changed. And if you’re lucky, you might find that a piece of Mrs B’s pineapple upside down cake has been saved for you.’ 

*

‘We should do something,’ Valerie says, one morning, a week or so later. ‘Get out of this place for a bit. Get dressed up and go somewhere nice. We could go to the flicks – or somewhere out west.’ 

Tomorrow is to be their first evening off that has coincided in weeks, and the prospect of getting away from Nonnatus House for a few hours is one that Lucille finds very attractive. With Nurse Turner recovering from a winter cold, and Phyllis still restricted to light duties, Sister Julienne has finally been persuaded to bring in extra nursing cover. (‘It is good for them to work – and work hard – at a time like this,’ Phyllis had advised. ‘But we must not wear them out. We must not take them for granted. We need to give them a break.’ And Sister Julienne had agreed.)

In between calls, then, Lucille steals a moment from her study of the Lancet to browse the listings in the paper; she mentally circles a few things which she thinks that Valerie will like. The possibilities of an evening out - the questions that it raises, the answers, that might, perhaps, be found - grow quietly in a corner of Lucille’s mind all day. 

But when Valerie returns from rounds that evening (having bypassed the Black Sail on her way home) those imaginings, such as they are, are punctured. 

‘Change of plan, I’m afraid,’ Valerie says, as she’s stuffing the fridge with the consignment of beef pies that Auntie Florrie has sent her home with. ‘I’d completely forgotten that tomorrow’s the Dyer family Christmas get together, in the Sail.’ 

‘Oh, nevermind,’ Lucille says, keeping the disappointment out of her voice, and glad that Val’s back is turned so she can’t see it written on her face. ‘We can do something another time.’ 

‘That’s not what I meant,’ Valerie says, glancing over her shoulder. ‘I want you to come with me.’ 

‘No, I couldn’t intrude,’ Lucille says. ‘Christmas is a time for family and loved ones.’ 

Valerie turns to face her. ‘That’s exactly what it is,’ she says. ‘So come with me!’ 

*

It is late when they leave the pub; the streets are quiet and dark and while they’ve been indoors, a gentle flutter of snow has begun to descend. 

The evening has been joyous and convivial, the pub crowded with the extended Dyer clan - grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, cousins and second cousins and cousins thrice removed – all fuelled by an extraordinary finger buffet and significant quantities of flowing drink. If Lucille has felt a pang of longing for home, for her own family and their seasonal rituals, she has also felt great delight in seeing Valerie in the midst of hers, as, raucous and homely, their not-entirely-harmonious voices, accompanied by an old and out of tune piano, came together, again and again, in familiar songs 

And beyond that, the glances that she has shared with Valerie, the words of support and endearment and teasing affection, and those moments, increasing in frequency, in which - without being able to help herself - she has reached for Valerie, or Valerie has reached for her: all of this has nourished a longing of a different sort. 

Lucille waits for Valerie to finish buttoning up her coat, and then she moves to her side and links their arms together. It is for comfort against the wintery night, Lucille reasons, but it also because it is time. They have come this far. It is only a little further. 

‘Remember when you first came to Nonnatus, in the snow,’ Valerie says, her palm open to catch the falling snowflakes. Though it’s cold enough to snow, it’s still too warm for it to settle; the snow dissolves even before it hits her hand. 

‘I'm not likely to forget that,’ Lucille says. ‘And you were the first one to welcome me.’ 

‘I could hardly turn you away, banging on the door like that.’

‘And then you had to patch up my knee. What an introduction.’

‘Well, go steady on the snow now – let’s not have a repeat of that,’ Valerie teases. 

‘If I go, I’m taking you with me,’ Lucille laughs, tugging on her arm to show how tightly they are intertwined. 

‘I won’t let you fall,’ Valerie says. 

Lucille is pensive for a moment. ‘I thought I would never get here that day,’ she says, eventually. 

Now it’s Valerie’s turn to be thoughtful. After a pause, and not quite in her normal voice, she says, ‘I’m so glad you did.’ 

They walk on in silence, skirting the edge of the park. It is not much further, Lucille thinks. Not much further at all. She unlinks their arms, and reaches for Valerie’s hand instead, and Valerie lets her tangle their fingers together. 

‘Thank you,’ Lucille says, and she brings them to a halt. Connected together as they are, Valerie pivots to face her. ‘For being there,’ Lucille continues. ‘When I’ve needed you.’ 

‘You know it’s been my pleasure.’

Even in the dim light, the expression on Valerie’s face gives Lucille courage. This is right, she knows. This must be right. 

She closes the distance between them, inclines her head, and gently places a kiss on Valerie’s cheek. ‘I’m so glad I found you,’ she murmurs. 

Lucille can feel Valerie tremble; as she steps back just a little, in the light of the street lamp and the fluttering snow, she can see Valerie’s decisive intake of breath and the resolution in her eyes. 

It is time. She knows it is time. 

‘May I?’ Valerie asks, leaning forward, her intent clear, her desire apparent. 

Lucille nods, that same desire reflected back. She tugs at Valerie’s hand, draws her into the darkened shadows of the park, and pulls her close. 

*

‘But we go out for a walk every evening,’ Stanley says, as Olive Mawson squints out of the window into the night beyond. 

‘I know you do, dad, but look at it out there. It’s snowing.’ Settling the curtains back in their place, she turns to him. 

‘It’s just a flutter. It’s hardly even sticking. And we’ll just be ten minutes,’ he says, trying to soothe her concerns. ‘But it settles him. It stops him getting up in the night.’

‘Well then. If you must. But wrap up warm, the pair of you. I don’t want either of you catching cold.’ 

*

A turn around the park has been their regular evening ritual for many a year now. It’s not the same as it once was, Stanley knows, but it is what it is and he takes comfort in that, and he thinks Donald does too. 

They talk idly on their approach to the park, of the gently falling snow and of winters they have known. Last winter, as remarkable as it was, seems to have shifted beyond Donald’s recall now, but there are winters further back on which they can both settle and remember. 

They turn the corner into the park, and as they have done so often before, they use the cover of it darkness to draw together and entwine their hands. And It seems they’re not the only ones. Across the way, Stanley glimpses two figures slipping out of the glare of the streetlamp and into the darkness and each other’s embrace. 

If Stanley half-recognizes either figure, he knows that Donald won’t, so it doesn’t bear remarking upon. But Donald follows the direction of his glance, anyway, and laughs quietly. ‘Young lovers snatching a moment together,’ he says. 

‘No doubt,’ Stanley agrees. 

‘Like us.’ Donald squeezes his hand tightly. 

‘Yes, like us,’ Stanley says, as he returns the squeeze. ‘Like us.’


End file.
